This Is Navalny

‘This is Navalny’ is a year long photoproject following Alexey Navalny’s insurgent campaign. Navalny, a lawyer and an anti-corruption activist, announced his bid to participate in March 2018 Russian presidential election in late 2016. For more than a year he campaigned across Russia trying to force Kremlin into letting him be in the ballot against Vladimir Putin despite trumped embezzlement accusations and a special bill outlawing those convicted from running.

Navalny’s campaign accumulated almost 200,000 volunteers, got almost $4 millions in small donations and opened 84 local headquarters, his investigative movie on prime minister Dmitry Medvedev been watched 25 millions times, all results prevueusly unseen in the history of Russian grass root campaigning. Navalny criss-crossed Russia twice, staging dozens of record-attending rallies from Murmansk to Vladivostok. He was attacked with green liquid and acid, partially losing sight in one eye. His campaign became a turning point for tens of thousands of young people who for the first time in a generation became engaged in politics and participated in permitted and unpermitted rallies in hundreds of Russian cities and towns.

Given the costs and lack of major independent media in Russia, the project was funded by Navalny’s campaign under the terms of providing total access and zero involvement in editing and publishing.

On December 26th, Alexei Navalny was banned from participating in elections. He announced a ‘voters strike’ and sued the Election Commission.

This story was published in the first issue of SVOY magazin. Available for order here.

Alexey Navalny, Russian opposition leader and presidential contender, his face splashed with a green liquid and acid after a pro-Kremlin activist's attack, looks into the camera on a way back to his office from the hospital in Moscow

Alexey Navalny along with his campaign staffers and other travelers board a passenger plane en route from Kaluga to Saint Petersburg

Alexey Navalny on a campaign trail is driven through crumbling suburbs of Izhevsk, a city of 646,000 citizens

Alexey Navalny speaks into megaphone standing on a loudspeaker that was brought to the square in Samara to deafen his rally that was outlawed by the local government

Alexey Navalny and his campaign staffers are having a night off as they have a stopover in Saint Petersburg while being on a campaign travel in Northwest Russia

Alexey Navalny sips tea at the railroad station in Bologoye as he waits for a train to Tver

Alexey Navalny speaks at his campaign rally in Vladivostok, Russia. He grimaces as he is told the police forces are using special equipment for his microphone to drop the connection and had to switch it to the wired one

Alexey Navalny gives away his microphone in order to have improvised debates with a Kremlin supporter who argued with him from the crowd during Navalny's campaign rally in Kursk

Alexey Navalny, frightened, looks in the mirror at his presidential campaign�s office in Barnaul in Siberia after he was attacked with a caustic green liquid at doorsteps by a man believed to have ties with local government

Alexey Navalny, his wife Yulia and son Zakhar are surrounded by the police forces as they are being removed from a protest rally against Moscow mayor

Alexey Navalny eats noodles in the backstage of his campaign's staff meeting in Tarusa, Russia

Alexey Navalny is detained at the site of an unpermitted rally on Moscow's main Tverskaya street

A button microphone, couple of glasses, a rubber duck symbolizing fight with corruption and a poster of an investigative movie on prime minister Dmitry Medvedev are seen on a fingerprinting powder-covered table in the studio of the Anti-corruption foundation that was searched without a warrant for a few days after its workers were arrested for staging a protest campaign

A look from Alexey Navalny's campaign bus on a snow-covered Siberian field

Alexey Navalny and his wife Yulia have a private moment before his speech at the general rehearsal of his meeting with campaign stuffers from all over Russia brought to a resort near Moscow

Alexey Navalny looks at crumbling houses in Arkhangelsk, on Russian North

Alexey Navalny speaks to his campaign's volunteers in Cherepovets, Russia while standing on a vintage loudspeaker

Police officers dismantle handcuffs from Alexey Navalny's hands prior to an appeal hearing after his arrest at a rally in Moscow, Russia

Alexey Navalny speaks at his campaign rally in Khabarovsk, a city on Russian Far East of approximately 600,000